All Aboard the Invisible Railroad!

What if I told you it was possible to lock your players on a tight railroad, but make them think every decision they made mattered?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

While this may sound like the evil GM speaking, I have my reasons. Firstly, not every GM has time to craft a massive campaign. There are also plenty of GMs who are daunted at the prospect of having to figure out every eventuality. So, this advice is offered to help people scale down the pressure of being a GM and give them options to reuse and recycle their ideas and channel players through an exciting adventure that just doesn’t have as many options as they thought it did. All I’m suggesting here is a way to make sure every choice the players make takes them to an awesome encounter, which is surly no bad thing.

A Caveat​

I should add that used too often this system can have the opposite effect. The important thing here is not to take away their feeling of agency. If players realise nothing they do changes the story, then the adventure will quickly lose its allure. But as long as they don’t realise what is happening they will think every choice matters and the story is entirely in their hands. However, I should add that some players are used to being led around by the nose, or even prefer it, so as long as no one points out the “emperor has no clothes” everyone will have a great game.

You See Three Doors…​

This is the most basic use of the invisible railroad: you offer a choice and whichever choice they pick it is the same result. Now, this only works if they don’t get to check out the other doors. So this sort of choice needs to only allow one option and no take backs. This might be that the players know certain death is behind the other two doors ("Phew, thank gods we picked the correct one there!"). The other option is for a monotone voice to announce “the choice has been made” and for the other doors to lock or disappear.

If you use this too often the players will start to realise what is going on. To a degree you are limiting their agency by making them unable to backtrack. So only lock out the other options if it looks likely they will check them out. If they never go and check then you don’t need to stop them doing so.

The Ten Room Dungeon​

This variant on the idea above works with any dungeon, although it might also apply to a village or any place with separate encounters. Essentially, you create ten encounters/rooms and whichever door the player character’s open leads to the next one on your list. You can create as complex a dungeon map as you like, and the player characters can try any door in any order. But whatever door they open after room four will always lead to room five.

In this way the players will think there is a whole complex they may have missed, and if they backtrack you always have a new room ready for them, it’s just the next one on the list. The downside is that all the rooms will need to fit to roughly the same dimensions if someone is mapping. But if no one is keeping track you can just go crazy.

Now, this may go against the noble art of dungeon design, but it does offer less wastage. There are also some GMs who create dungeons that force you to try every room, which is basically just visible railroading. This way the players can pick any door and still visit every encounter.

This idea also works for any area the player characters are wandering about randomly. You might populate a whole village with only ten NPCs because unless the characters are looking for someone specific that will just find the next one of your preset NPCs regardless of which door they knock on.

What Path Do You Take in the Wilderness?​

When you take away doors and corridors it might seem more complex, but actually it makes the invisible railroad a lot easier. The player characters can pick any direction (although they may still pick a physical path). However, it is unlikely they will cross into another environmental region even after a day’s walk. So as long as your encounters are not specific to a forest or mountain they should all suit “the next encounter.”

So, whichever direction the players decide to go, however strange and off the beaten path, they will encounter the same monster or ruins as if they went in any other direction. Essentially a wilderness is automatically a ‘ten room dungeon’ just with fewer walls.

As with any encounter you can keep things generic and add an environmentally appropriate skin depending on where you find it. So it might be forest trolls or mountain trolls depending on where they are found, but either way its trolls. When it comes to traps and ruins it’s even easier as pretty much anything can be built anywhere and either become iced up or overgrown depending on the environment.

Before You Leave the Village…​

Sometimes the easiest choice is no choice at all. If the player characters have done all they need to do in “the village” (or whatever area they are in) they will have to move on to the next one. So while they might procrastinate, explore, do some shopping, you know which major plot beat they are going to follow next. Anything they do beforehand will just be a side encounter you can probably improvise or draw from your backstock of generic ones. You need not spend too long on these as even the players know these are not important. The next piece of the “proper adventure” is whenever they leave the village so they won’t expect anything beyond short and sweet. In fact, the less detailed the encounters the more the GM will be assumed to be intimating it is time to move on.

Following the Clues​

Finally we come to the most common invisible railroad that isn’t ever considered railroading (ironically). Investigative adventures usually live and breathe by allowing the player characters to uncover clues that lead to other clues. Such adventures are actually openly railroading as each clue leads to another on a proscribed path. The players aren’t forced to follow the clues, but what else are they going to do? The players are making a point of following the railroad in the knowledge it will take them to the denouement of the adventure. What makes this type of railroading entertaining is that the players feel clever for having found the clues that lead them along the path. So if they start to divert too much the GM can put another clue on their path or let them find the next one a little easier and you are back on track.

The "Good" Kind of Railroading​

Now, all this may all seem a little manipulative, but modifying events in reaction to what the players do is a part of many GM’s tools. Any trick you use is usually okay as long as you do it to serve the story and the player’s enjoyment.

That said, never take away player agency so you can ensure the story plays out the way you want it to. This sort of railroading should only be used just to make the game more manageable and free up the GM to concentrate on running a good game instead of desperately trying to create contingencies. So, remember that you must never restrict the choices and agency of the players, at least knowingly. But it is fine to make sure every road goes where you want it to, as long as that is to somewhere amazing.

Your Turn: How do you use railroading in your games?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Presumably they're making the decision when they decide to play a game that gives the GM authority to run the game the way they want.

That's a pretty flimsy excuse. "There's a line of text buried in a book you're never going to read which justifies my behavior!" Nah, sorry, that's not cutting it.

You have to actually say it. You, the human being, have to communicate with the people you're working with. Come to a consensus. If you do that, awesome, there is no deception, nobody's being sold anything other than what they asked for. I support that 100%, even though I don't personally grok what the players get out of playing a game where their choices (frequently) don't matter.

I do not, at all, whatsoever, support someone claiming, "Because there's a line of text buried in a whole other rulebook you've almost certainly never read, I never need to get consent from my players." That's absolute hogwash, and deeply disrespectful to those players.

 

[Charlaquin]

Presumably they're making the decision when they decide to play a game that gives the GM authority to run the game the way they want.

Can’t consent without knowledge. It’s perfectly fine to run games this way, as long as you notify your players you’re doing so. Some of them might decide not to participate, but that’s why you tell them first. So they have the opportunity to make that informed decision.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I would not do this. If they chose to go to the library before going to the market, the encounter would happen without them. If they delayed going off to an important location, the world goes on without them. I won't be a HUGE stickler over time things because I don't want to be a dick. But if they intentionally delay on something they know is important, e.g. repeatedly putting off addressing a known threat (as my group did with the black dragon gang), that threat becomes more dangerous.

So when does the clock start? How many clocks for things the players are likely to miss you have running simultaneously?

I'm not even saying that one couldn't do that. I do it for a bunch of stuff, usually big stuff. But I also use flexible time line and sometimes location too.

It's really very simple. Are you telling me my choices actually matter? This is a yes or no question. Either you are, or you aren't. Do my choices actually matter when they seem to matter? This is again a yes or no question. Either they do, or they don't. If you're telling me that seemingly-meaningful choices matter, but in fact they do not matter, then that is deceptive. It literally could not possibly get any simpler.

Are (at least some) player choices presented as being actually meaningful? Yes/No
Are those choices that are presented as meaningful actually meaningful? Yes/No
Extra credit: Do you conceal the evidence that would reveal that the seemingly-meaningful choices aren't? Yes/No

If the answer is "yes" to the first question and "no" to the second, it is deceptive, period, end of discussion. If the answer to the extra credit question is also yes, then it's not only deceptive, it's actively covering up that deception, continuously. Few people like being deceived. Even fewer like finding out that someone has worked to deny them even the possibility of discovering the deception.

If the answer is "no" to the first question then while it might not be deception anymore, you're not very likely to attract a lot of players. Telling people straight-up, "It doesn't matter what choices you make, the events will play out as I want them to," is...well, you CAN do that, but I don't think you'll be very successful. There's a reason so many people who advocate for fudging and/or railroading out there explicitly say that you should never allow your players to find out that you do it. Likewise, if you don't conceal the fact that you're offering choices that appear to be meaningful but are in fact meaningless, I strongly suspect you're going to have at least one upset player sooner rather than later, and the results area not likely to be pretty--so if your answers are Yes/No/No, I don't expect you to have much success as a DM.

Yes/No/Yes is deceptive, and thus unstable--if you slip up, you're likely to have upset players--but it is at least an unstable equilibrium. Yes/Yes/(N/A) is not deceptive, and thus stable. You aren't telling your players that a given choice is meaningful when it isn't, and thus there is nothing to "slip up" on, no hidden truth to be revealed because the surface appearance is the truth.

This assumes the sort of clarity that simply generally is not present. In the earlier example is the question "what you do on the morning" presented as meaningful? And is it meaningful? It certainly is in sense that the players say they want to do research in the library, so they get to do that. But it is not meaningful in the sense that the market encounter happens eventually anyway. So was someone deceived?

I used the phrase "immoral or inappropriate" for a reason. I would appreciate not being selectively quoted.

Doesn't make it any better.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Can’t consent without knowledge. It’s perfectly fine to run games this way, as long as you notify your players you’re doing so. Some of them might decide not to participate, but that’s why you tell them first. So they have the opportunity to make that informed decision.

Notify about what? That the GM is in charge? It says so in the rules!

 

[Charlaquin]

Notify about what? That the GM is in charge? It says so in the rules!

Notify them that you are going to change things around behind the scenes so the players don’t miss out on prepared content.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Notify about what? That the GM is in charge? It says so in the rules!

Notify that choices which clearly are supposed to matter, won't. Or rather...

Notify them that you are going to change things around behind the scenes so the players don’t miss out on prepared content.

...this. This is correct.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Notify them that you are going to change things around behind the scenes so the players don’t miss out on prepared content.

What does this mean? What is a change? Why is this something that is not already covered by the GM being in charge?

 

[Charlaquin]

What does this mean?

It’s pretty well-described in the opening post.

What is a change?

For example? Say you have a cool setpiece encounter planned. But, you don’t want to risk the possibility that the players will miss it, so rather than keying it to a specific part of the dungeon or whatever, you decide it will occur wherever the players happen to go.

Why is this something that is not already covered by the GM being in charge?

Because it’s a technique that requires the players’ ignorance of its use in order to function. It is specifically designed to be kept secret. Now, if you tell your players you plan to do this, and they agree they are fine with you doing it without notice, no problem. If you don’t inform them, you are deceiving them, which is disrespectful.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It’s pretty well-described in the opening post.

Sure. And some of that, at least in smaller scale, is pretty normal GMing.

For example? Say you have a cool setpiece encounter planned. But, you don’t want to risk the possibility that the players will miss it, so rather than keying it to a specific part of the dungeon or whatever, you decide it will occur wherever the players happen to go.

So the GM must beforehand declare that location and timing of everything is not fixed and preplanned? Why? That is practically always the case!

Because it’s a technique that requires the players’ ignorance of its use in order to function. It is specifically designed to be kept secret. Now, if you tell your players you plan to do this, and they agree they are fine with you doing it without notice, no problem. If you don’t inform them, you are deceiving them, which is disrespectful.

A lot of GMing relies on players not knowing stuff. How is not implicitly obvious that in D&D GM is allowed to keep stuff secret from the players?

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure. And some of that, at least in smaller scale, is pretty normal GMing.

So the GM must beforehand declare that location and timing of everything is not fixed and preplanned? Why? That is practically always the case!

It may be “normal GMing” and “practically always the case” to you, because of who you have played with. There is, however, a significant contingent of D&D players and DMs for whom this is very much not the norm, and in fact, considered very poor form. That’s why it’s important to discuss ahead of time. These unspoken assumptions can and do lead to dysfunction and hurt feelings when they come to light.

A lot of GMing relies on players not knowing stuff. How is not implicitly obvious that in D&D GM is allowed to keep stuff secret from the players?

It’s not just that the DM is keeping something secret, it’s that the technique is premised around deceiving the players.